Living With Baby Loss {The Ordinary Moments #7}

Baby Loss. This isn’t something I would usually write about for my ordinary moments posts. If you have read them before you will know that each week I love to tell stories about the tiny moments and strange things that my little ladies like and do right here and now. The lovely moments that I want to capture because I know they will not last forever. I relish the thought that I can re-visit each moment in years to come when they really could not care less about the fact that the bin lorry is making it’s way down the road, that they used to love their bedtime milk or ever even remember sitting in a highchair. I want to document the happy ordinary moments. Usually.

But I also want to be authentic, to really represent our lives in the most ordinary of ways, to be real. This week has been half term and it has been utterly amazing. I have adored every single minute of having both my little ladies together, they have been delightful and I have ended each day with a happy heart full of love. I have really stopped this week to soak up all of their love, their ordinary moments and been able to stand back and appreciate it without rushing on to the next thing. And there is a big reason why. A reason to hug them tighter and appreciate every inch of them.

The reality of living with baby loss.

Personally this week is hard, this week is the run up to the day that my baby should have been born. The baby I will never hold, never meet and never know. And the thought of that makes me stop and appreciate what I do have, to give them everything, to give them all of me and never ever wanting to let them go. I think realistically I have spent the week trying NOT to think about it.

If I didn’t think about it and soaked up all the happy moments then when the time came, when the day came I would be fine, it would be sad but it would just be another day. An end to a really happy week. Right?

Wrong.

There is much written now about baby loss, although it still isn’t something widely talked about there are people out there who write about it, who share their stories and make it feel less taboo. People who know how hard going through it can be and who make you feel less alone in the depths of grief when you go through such a loss.

There is not so much however about living with baby loss. Like somehow once you get through those tough times, maybe when you have another baby, when time just goes on that that is it. The hurt goes away. Yet here I am 3 1/2 years on still trying to make sense of it, still feeling like I am in the thick of it, still learning to live with that loss. To understand why there still feels like a big fat hole in my life.

I kept the reasons for my loss a secret for 3 whole years. For three years I let it eat away at me, feeling isolated, guilty and alone. It was only in October that I let it out right here on my blog. Although sharing such a personal story was so unbelievably hard for me and not really like me at all, pressing publish on that post lifted a weight I had been carrying for so long. To have such an outpour of love, support and messages from people who have been through the same or could understand what I went through. Even people that I had helped feel less alone by talking about it. That was the most amazing feeling ever.

To admit and accept what I had gone through and have people send love, not hate, was freeing. Maybe now I could stop hating myself. I felt light, and free. So I thought that was it, I had finally conquered what I had needed to do. To finally grieve, to finally hurt less and move on.

Time is a healer they say. It will get better they say. You are blessed with the children you have they say.

And yes I no longer cry uncontrollable tears into my pillow every single night as in those early days. I can go weeks without letting the tears fall or the deep physical ache from consuming me. To feel those raw instinctive feelings that I never even knew existed before.

And yes I feel very lucky to have the most amazing children in the world who I would not change for anything. I am acutely aware that I would not know my littlest lady had it not been for this loss. I wouldn’t feel the immense joy that she brings for me and I am grateful for that. So very grateful.

But I do hurt. Every single day. Those instinctive overwhelming feeling are still there, they just lie slightly deeper below the surface. I’m just used to hiding it now.

Except when I can’t, except when little moments remind me that I will forever be missing a piece of me. When I see a three children family and wonder if that would have been our story. When I cannot walk past a baby shop without my heart beating faster as I will my little legs to carry on and not to buckle underneath me. When I realise that this is never going away, that this has changed me forever. Suddenly the hurt sweeps over me and I have no control again.

The pain is still very much there, it just hides.

I might not speak about it, you may meet me and would never even know that was part of my story. You might even be reading this, having missed 1 post in a whole blog of them, and never have known. You may follow me on social media where it has never really cropped up, or pass me in the street and politely smile as I look like I am rushing to get somewhere when I am really fighting back tears until I am inside the safety of my own four walls. But this is a huge part of me, one that I will never forget. I never can and I never would.

Today. The 19th February. You would have been born. You should have been born. I would have got to hold you, to see you, to feel you. I would have looked into your eyes and stroked your face, got to know you and protected you.

Today you should be turning 3. I should have flour covered hands from making your cake, be stressed about a house full of toddlers, and have an empty wallet from buying more presents and making the day special. And all I have. Is an empty heart that can never be filled. My heart so physically aches for all of that. For you. And after three years I am pretty sure that no passing day or passing year can ever change that. I am truly sorry. I miss you and I love you. To the moon and back.

It may seem strange to share something so personal but truly this is my ordinary, it has consumed almost all of my thoughts this week and when I came to write, this was all that came out. This is me. This is real.

These tears that escape so easily from my eyes, that collect on my eyelashes before racing down my cheeks, are real. That vacant, empty look you see on my pained face, is real. That skin void of make up and unbrushed hair, is real. Because this week has been tough, and today is going to be a really really tough day. One that will be a complicated mixture of fake smiles, brave faces and big fat ugly tears.

18 Comments

I’m so sorry for your loss Laura, I don’t know what to say. I know nothing can make it better but I hope that writing about it does help and gives you a bit of release. It must be so hard to have that all going on in your head all the time. You are an inspiration in the way that you carry on for your other children when you are hurting so much inside. Sending so much love to you xx

Oh my goodness Laura, I indeed was one of the people who missed your first post. I have just sat reading it in tears, how horrific for you all. How truly awful. I can’t imagine how you must feel day in day out and when you said don’t hate me cause it can’t be worse than hating myself, it made me have tears fall down my cheeks. It must hurt so much. I don’t have anything to say except I am sending you so so so much love. xx

This bought a tear to my eye reading it on here and your post on IG. I hope that by writing it down it helps release emotions and perhaps helps other parents who may be going through similar. Sending love x #TheOrdinaryMoments

Losing a baby at any stage is a pain unlike any other and something you will always remember. From a fellow baby loss mother I can tell you that time is not a healer but you do learn to keep a lid on it…. I am sorry you had to make that choice and that you grieve your baby…its such a hard place to be and so many wonderiings ,, there is no substitute and nothing that will replace them. Love and hugs xx #ordinarymoments

I’m so sorry for your loss. I just read your first post about your baby too. Absolutely devastating for you I can’t even imagine what you must have gone through. I vomited my way through 3 pregnancies and felt sick 24 hrs a day but NOTHUNG like you went through and just that left me miserable enough and struggling to cope with my other children. I lost a baby through miscarriage at 6 weeks but I very rarely think of that baby or feel sad….my body made the choice for me and that baby wasn’t meant to be. My point there being I was very lucky that decision got made for me. You didn’t have any choice either and weren’t so lucky that your body didn’t take over. But it’s essentially the same thing and you have nothing more to feel bad for than I do. There are babies that just aren’t meant to be born Lots of love and hugs xxx

I am sorry you had so much sickness, it is horrible isn’t it, i had it with the other too aswell, not as bad of course but it was still tough to go through. And thank you your words mean alot and whilst I will always wonder what could have been I know deep down it could not have been meant to be x

Oh hunny I didn’t catch the first post and this just made me cry for you. With tears streaming down my face my heart goes to you, hugs and all. I am so sorry for your loss. I can’t imagine what it feels like to carry that with you and of course you are thinking of it and trying not to but it’s there and it’s good you share and recognize it’s apart of you and your life. You are so brave and strong for telling your story. It’s hard to think of what might have been. Hope you are babas tightly and sending love to you virtually. #ordinarymoments

Oh Laura, I am feeling so heartbroken for you. I actually stumbled across this via the ordinary moments so haven’t seen your first post. I actually wrote about baby loss too, so I totally understand. I am so glad others, like yourself, are telling the stories. You’re so brave, strong and I am so sorry for your loss! Sending you virtual love.

Thank you Nicole it is such a hard topic to pen but also so important not to feel alone too especially under my circumstances. I am sorry for your loss and glad that you have your little rainbow baby too, these ones do go someway to heal the heart x

You know that I’ve never even considered that someone would have to go through this. I have a friend who suffered so terribly every day until the moment her son was born but of course the toll on her body must have been dreadful. You must have felt so powerless and my heart really goes out to you Laura xx